Briefcase

Northshore Automotive receives award

Northshore Automotive & RV of Federal Way was awarded AAA Washington’s 2001 Top Shop Award for its performance during the past year.

The award is presented to dealerships and independent automotive repair shops that earned top scores on AAA’s Customer Service Index. To qualify, each shop must be a part of AAA’s Approved Auto Repair program.

Shops are graded on customer satisfaction, shop cleanliness, customer response, professionalism and business practices.

Northshore and nine other independent recipients were chosen from AAA’s 240 Approved Auto Repair facilities.

Ad agency gets creative award

Highstreet Advertising is among the winners in the 2002 Summit Creative Awards competition. Its entry for PDS Fence, a division of Bunzl International, was deemed one of the best among the thousands of entries received from across the country and around the world.

Highstreet, based in Puyallup, is targeting the south King County market, where it has a client in Transmission Rebuild Center in Kent.

College charts career paths, job searches

Highline Community College’s Career and Employment Services Center will host a series of career development workshops on Thursdays during spring quarter.

Topics range from finding and landing a job to writing cover letters and resumes. The workshops are free and open to the public. Additional information is available at (206) 878-3710, ext. 3599.

The center also serves as a referral center where job notices from local employers are posted. In addition, it offers resources regarding self-assessment (interest, skill and personality indicators) and trends in the labor force and upcoming careers.

E-bill system promoted for doctors

The state Department of Social and Health Services has an offer for doctors and dentists it hopes they won’t refuse: A new Internet tool that will help hundreds of Washington doctors, dentists and other healthcare providers who file Medicaid bills on paper to switch over to electronic billing faster and at less cost.

The offer has something for state government and the taxpayers, too. Up to 12,000 paper bills still arrive at DSHS each day, filed on racks and shelving for time-consuming and expensive processing by hand. Providers who convert to electronic claims will help the agency cut those processing costs.

DSHS officials say the biggest benefit for the provider is slicing up to two weeks or more off doctors’ reimbursement wait. Electronic claims take about a week to process, while paper processing averages as long as 24 days.

Each paper form costs the state more than $1 to process. By comparison, electronic claims cost only pennies per transaction. “Without them, we couldn’t distribute the more than $2.6 billion a year that goes to doctors, dentists, hospitals, clinics and other providers of health care under Medicaid,” said DSHS secretary Dennis Braddock.

Braddock noted that 500 of the state’s 50,000 healthcare providers actually contribute most of the paper claims.

Edward Jones at Browns Point

Scott Peters has taken over the Browns Point location for Edward Jones Investments.

Peters said Jones is tailored to individual investors, offering investment opportunities for as little as $100 per month.

His two-employee office can be reached at 942-8586.

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